ABOUT

About Us

Nothing in this world can happen without the command and blessings of the Lord of this world, Shri Hari.

An inspiration from our Kuladevata, Shri Mahalasa Narayani’s Temple on the Internet was first conceived and created towards the end of 1998.

The first few pages were launched on Geocities, the free hosting provider. On January 25, 2000, www.mahalasa.org came to be registered as a full-fledged website.

Slowly, but surely, the website started growing as did its popularity all over the world.

During our journey of over a decade, we discovered other temples of Shri Mahalasa Narayani in different states, including Maharashtra, Goa, Karnataka and elsewhere.

It occurred to us that all these temples, big or small, deserved to be brought out into the limelight, so that Her kulavis and other devotees could visit these temples, receive Her favours and bask in Her glory. Thus we attempted to slowly add these to our website so that this information in one portal would make it easy for Her devotees.

On several occasions, we have even written to the managements of many temples to provide us with whatever information they have regarding the history of such temples, the festivals celebrated and so on — and keep our address in their records to as to update us regularly. Sad to say, not many responded.

However, we carried out with this work as entailed by Shri Mahalasa Narayani unfettered by these minor hiccups.

As technologies improved, so did we try to stay with the times. We attempted several redesigns, but many did not work. So we stuck to our original format for several years.

Now, we have gone in for CMS or content management system using WordPress with extensive use of PHP, MySQL, CSS, etc.

The new design has been kept keeping in view the visitors in mind. It is bolder, brighter and an attempt has been made to ensure easy navigation through the pages.

Apart from this, we have tried to update the information wherever and whenever available, despite many constraints faced, one of these mentioned above.

In 2013-14, due to severe health and other constraints, the website was neglected and went into limbo for a very long time. His Holiness Guruji Shri Suresh J Pai of Harikhandige was the one most disappointed, especially as the subdomian, also closed down. For Guruji, propagating Her glories was the ultimate path to reach Her Holy feet. Several others offered to take up the job and construct a new website. But Guruji had faith that She would not let us down and on the inspiration of both God and Guruji, the websites sprung back to life. Work is still in progress…

Meanwhile, we take this opportunity to place on record our great and sincere appreciation for those thousands of visitors who have chosen to interact with us, over e-mail, over phone and even snail mail.

Without their suggestions, criticisms and even moral support, this website has reached where it is today: In 2014 January, for example, we had well over 8,50,000 visitors in a month, making that an astonishing 10 million plus visitors a year. Indeed, your continuous words of encouragement has been a real source of strength to us.

All this is possible thanks purely due to the Grace of our beloved mother Shri Mahalasa Narayani.

About the Editor & Webmaster

A senior journalist, Shrikant N Shenoy (b 1961) was born and bred in Bombay and has lived in Hyderabad for a few years before moving to Dubai, UAE, in 1997.

He has put in well over three decades in the profession having worked with various newspapers and publications in Bombay, Hyderabad, India; and Dubai, UAE.

Shrikant is no software/hardware engineer by training: Whatever he has learnt has been off the Internet itself.

Shrikant returned to India in 2004 to capitalise on the alleged ‘feel-good factor’ and to launch a web and newspaper design firm, based out of Parkala, a small town neighbouring the knowledge city of Manipal in the west coastal region of India’s Karnataka state.

For this website and other websites he has created, including Shri Mangeshi’s, Shrikant’s reward — which he values more than anything else — has been the encouraging comments of the visitors, the devotees of Shri Mahalasa and the community at large.

Indeed it was by design that Mother Mahalasa guided him towards the holy feet of His Holiness Guruji Shri Suresh J Pai of Shri Mahalasa Narayani Devi Kshetra, Harikhandige, where it appears She has decided to reside to enlighten Her devotees and direct them on the correct road to salvation at Her Holy feet.

In this modern age and heady days of globalisation, it might seem a contradiction to some: the relevance of religion when compared with present-day life. But Shrikant’s own experiences show that he has been richly rewarded by his devotion and respects to Shri Mahalasa Narayani and other deities of the Hindu pantheon.

His other interests include environmental and social issues, cooking, gardening and has even acted in a Konkani teleserial telecast on DD Chandana. He is married to Rohini, a teacher by profession, a person who shares his vision and has been a source of strength to him. Rohini has also helped in the running of this website. They have a son Vishal and daughter Pratiksha. He can be contacted on +91 94483 82461 or by e-mail: snshenoy@mahalasa.org